I am! I've played id games since my early childhood and always had the image of the them supporting linux. But last QaukeCon really took me by surprise when John Carmack himself publicly stated id won't be targeting Linux at all. A shame, really. The Doom3 engine + Radiant level editor release is cool though. Id software's + Ravens, along with epic and valve, games are part of my inspiration of becoming a game developer. My company, is certainly targeting Linux as an actual target platform. I am pleased to see Valve doing the same, and I hope they continue to their statement. The CEO said that there was a new Linux team in Valve hired. As for Epic, well, I've only played their games on windows and xbox, I love GOW. Always a shame though if a company makes a blind eye to the great Linux communities. On my end, I am proud to support Linux.

I think Valve sees the handwriting on the wall, and their recent Linux push is a reaction to this. Others have stated this opinion as well.

With Steam, Valve has really been running a "walled garden" for some time now. But with the iPhone, Apple created its own walled garden, and everyone else is getting set to follow suit, including Microsoft with Windows 8. So for ID to sell its products into Microsoft's walled garden isn't a big problem, but it doesn't look like two different walled gardens can play well together, at least not without a lot of cooperation from both parties. Valve/Steam gets frozen out.

Add to that the fact that there is coming to be a much tighter coupling between platform makers and walled garden owners, and the freeze against Valve/Steam gets even worse. Apple owns the iPhone and its own walled garden. In many respects, Microsoft "owns" the hardware platforms that are going to play with it's walled garden, or at least it strongly dictates terms.

So many believe that Valve is getting ready to launch its own game platform - simply because it's getting ejected from its current platforms. They may be doing that, or they may see Linux as the correct path into Android, or its even possible to walk both paths at the same time. Certainly if they want to launch their own hardware platform, they'd rather pick one than roll their own. Linux becomes a logical choice, especially given its relation to Android._________________.sigs waste space and bandwidth

Do you really think porting a two years old game to linux will help linux gaming ?

If the steam guys wish help linux gaming they would have made left for dead 3 for x months exclusive for linux before other platform.
And if they wish a fair thing, they should made a left for dead 3 for linux version avaiable the same time as the windows version.

left for dead 2 for linux will be a lost, and they will think it's because linux users are too few. No, i just doubt they cannot see that coming.

Why they are doing that : porting that version is easy, the game is already made, they need few devs to hack it to make it work with linux, so few costs to make it.
Once steam have a native linux game and client they could sell the concept to others game companies, because they were the only gameapp on market for windows, but not anymore, EA origin, and worst for them, the thing that make them move, the windows 8 market.
With linux they could said: put your game in steam, because we're the only one with all computers audience (windows, linux, os/x)

I'm not saying it's not a good news, but i'm just amaze when i see people speaking about steam like if jesus is back, and because it's jesus 2012 version God sent him with a laptop, and because he must handle human pain (and God love to laugh), God preinstall ubuntu on jesus's laptop.

I really do suspect that Valve sees their future as being in Linux, as in Android and/or their own console. But you have to walk before you can run. They're probably looking at their own code bases to see what can readily be ported to LInux, what won't be a joke if ported to Linux, and what makes the most sense for their learning curve. I suspect this is primarily a process, not a product. You have to lead with something.

But in all of this, keep in mind that they're out to help themselves, not Linux. Linux is a tool to help them reach their own goals. That it should also help Linux is fortunate._________________.sigs waste space and bandwidth